In recent years, further reduction in size of coil components (inductors) employed in mobile devices, such as mobile phones, smartphones, tablet PCs are called for due to multi-functionalization of the devices.
A thin-film coil component is known as a structure designed to reduce the size of the coil component. In the thin-film coil component, a coil pattern is formed on a substrate by growing a conductive pattern, which is formed on the substrate with a conductor such as copper, by plating. In such a structure, an increase in the cross-sectional area of the coil pattern by plating leads to a reduction in resistance. As a result, the current capacity of the coil is increased and the device may be devised to have high efficiency. Related techniques are disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 10-125533, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2006-32976, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 10-261531, and Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2008-103482, for example.